Ocean Sentry
Poaching, illegal fishing and deforestation are threatening more than quarter of UNESCO’s World Heritage sites, according to a report by the WWF (World Wide Fund for Nature) — and the consequences are not just environmental….
May, 2017
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31 May
Warming to blame for coral bleaching in Hawaii
From 2014 to 2016, nearly 50 percent of the corals in Hanauma Bay Nature Preserve on Oahu, Hawaii, bleached and almost 10 percent of them died, researchers reported today (May 30) in PeerJ. The authors conclude that warm temperatures were responsible for the die-off, rather than other potential factors such …
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29 May
Coral bleaching on Great Barrier Reef worse than expected, surveys show
Coral bleaching on the Great Barrier Reef last year was even worse than expected, while the full impact of the most recent event is yet to be determined…
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29 May
Human-made chemicals found in higher quantities in deep ocean
CFCs, largely phased out of production in 1994, are accumulating deep in the Atlantic Ocean. Human-made chemicals arethe North Atlantic, a new study has found…
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25 May
Sub-zero waters a barrier to oil spill recovery
Sub-zero temperatures in the deep waters of the North Atlantic would significantly hamper the ability of oil-eating bacteria to help the ocean recover from a major oil spill, according to new research by the University of Aberdeen…
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22 May
Exposure to BPA potentially induces permanent reprogramming of painted turtles’ brains
BPA is a chemical that is used in a variety of consumer products, such as food storage containers and water bottles. In previous studies, researchers determined that BPA can disrupt sexual function and behavior in painted turtles. Now, the team has identified the genetic pathways that are altered as a …
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19 May
Antarctica ‘greening’ due to climate change
Few plants live on the continent, but scientists studying moss have found a sharp increase in biological activity in the last 50 years.A team including scientists from the University of Exeter used moss bank cores—which are well preserved in Antarctica’s cold conditions—from an area spanning about 400 miles….
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18 May
Fishing can lead to rapid evolutionary changes in exploited fish populations
Cohort after cohort, fishing typically removes large fish from the population and can lead to rapid evolutionary changes in exploited fish populations. A new study from the University of Turku, Finland, shows that removing the largest individuals from the population can lead to massive gene expression changes in an experimentally …
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18 May
New report on Arctic biodiversity suggests environment ‘on verge of major shift’
Arctic marine species and ecosystems are undergoing pressure from a build up of changes in their physical, chemical and biological environment. These pressures, such as ice loss, changes to food, invasive species and infectious diseases, ‘are taking their toll on marine animals and are pointing to an ecosystem on the …
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18 May
Fish boost photosynthesis by wafting water around corals
The fin fanning of damselfish in the Red Sea helps boost the rate of photosynthesis of the algae that live inside corals. We already knew that the damselfish (Dascyllus marginatus) lives in symbiosis with the coral Stylophora pistillata. The fish use coral branches as shelters and nests, and in return they …
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17 May
In Indonesia, another coral reef devastated by global warming
A recent expedition to the Chagos Archipelago, a collection of at least 60 small islands in the Indian Ocean, has revealed devastating coral bleaching and coral death there, too…
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17 May
Marine scientists determine how the larvae of a common coral species respond to environmental stresses
This study really looks at how ocean changes like warming and acidification will impact the ability of coral larvae to disperse and contribute to creating new reefs,” said senior author Gretchen Hofmann, a professor in UCSB’s Department of Ecology, Evolution and Marine Biology…